Portrait of Bach
Kelly and Sandy
I am learning keyboard piece by piece from the Well-Tempered Clavier
books. Right now I am starting Prelude 6 of book 2.
I remember coming across on the web, a portrait drawing of Bach done
by one of his sons. I've looked and looked, but I can't seem to find
that picture again. It seems to me to be the only picture I've seen
that sees him intimately and captures a true likeness.
Does anyone know of the drawing I'm talking about?
I think it would help in learning to play the prelude properly.
(Everyone seems to play it far too fast!)
With kind regards,
Sandy
--
Sandy Anderson <junk.r...@alma-services.abel.co.uk>
(Yorkshire, England)
Where there is no vision, the people perish.
Qamra
> Dear alt.music.j-s-bach,
>
> I am learning keyboard piece by piece from the Well-Tempered
> Clavier books. Right now I am starting Prelude 6 of book 2.
>
> I remember coming across on the web, a portrait drawing of Bach
> done by one of his sons. I've looked and looked, but I can't seem
> to find that picture again. It seems to me to be the only picture
> I've seen that sees him intimately and captures a true likeness.
>
> Does anyone know of the drawing I'm talking about?
>
> I think it would help in learning to play the prelude
> properly. (Everyone seems to play it far too fast!)
>
> With kind regards,
>
> Sandy
Hello Sandy,
As I'm visually impaired, I don't know much about portraits. :-) But because
nobody has replied to your question so far, I decided to do so. If you go to
www.jsbach.org
you will find a link "portraits" and there you find quite a few portraits
which may or may not be of Bach. Maybe the one you are looking for is there
too.
Hope this will help.
Kind regards,
Qamra
Jsb1441
Kelly and Sandy
wrote
>> I am learning keyboard piece by piece from the Well-Tempered
>> Clavier books. Right now I am starting Prelude 6 of book 2.
>>
>> I remember coming across on the web, a portrait drawing of Bach
>> done by one of his sons. I've looked and looked, but I can't seem
>> to find that picture again. It seems to me to be the only picture
>> I've seen that sees him intimately and captures a true likeness.
>>
>> Does anyone know of the drawing I'm talking about?
>>
>> I think it would help in learning to play the prelude
>> properly. (Everyone seems to play it far too fast!)
>
>Hello Sandy,
>As I'm visually impaired, I don't know much about portraits. :-) But because
>nobody has replied to your question so far, I decided to do so. If you go to
>www.jsbach.org
>you will find a link "portraits" and there you find quite a few portraits
>which may or may not be of Bach. Maybe the one you are looking for is there
>too.
>Hope this will help.
>
>Kind regards,
>Qamra
Dear Qamra,
Thank you. I've discovered that it's the something-pastel, ah yes,
the "Meiningen" Pastel I saw. The version I first discovered on the web
was greytones, so I thought it was a drawing in charcoals.
By (one of his cousins?) Gottlieb Freidrich Bach (1714-1785), done
possibly circa 1741, when Bach was 56, and Gottlieb Freidrich was 27,
already with a painting trade and career.
Yes, it's done when not a teenager, and is an intimate pastel
drawing of a family member, from life. A good likeness, because they
have a unspoken strongly felt connection. And it's the real Bach. The
artist, the poetic genius. Definitely he who wrote the second book of
the Well-Tempered Clavier. The other paintings are fine and yak-yak,
and all that but they're done by those days' "portrait photographers"
and frankly they stink. The Hausmann paintings are a well-executed and
professionally done representation of a public persona. Pretty hack
work, but no doubt accoladed and very lucrative. A bit like Handel,
really.
Thank God I don't have to think of the Hausmann portrait anymore!
Qamra
Dear Sandy,
But are you sure the picture you mean indeed is a portrait of Bach? I always
understood that only for the Hausmann portrait we can be sure of this.
That's the reason why I have the Hausmann portrait as background picture on
my computer desktop. But if the one you saw surely is a picture of Bach, I
will change it, because even I can see it's certainly more flattering than
the Hausmann. :-)
Kind Regards,
Qamra
Kelly and Sandy
wrote
>But are you sure the picture you mean indeed is a portrait of Bach? I always
>understood that only for the Hausmann portrait we can be sure of this.
>That's the reason why I have the Hausmann portrait as background picture on
>my computer desktop. But if the one you saw surely is a picture of Bach, I
>will change it, because even I can see it's certainly more flattering than
>the Hausmann. :-)
Well, I'm basing it on the experience of my own drawing ability, my
intuition of the soul that comes out at you from the Meiningen pastel,
and Teri Noel Towe's research and discussion on his "Face of Bach"
pages:
http://www.npj.com/thefaceofbach/
First off, everything correlates with the other evidence, that it is
him. And it _is_ a live pastel, drawn with love and feeling, with Bach
in front of him, and relaxed at home among family. It is not a copy,
this never comes over so directly when copying. Also no one talks about
it not being J.S. Bach. (You can be sure they would if they could!)
Talking of portraits, I am reading Charles Sanford Terry's 1928
biography of Bach. I find it really wonderful writing (compared to the
style of today) and a lovingly done vivid portrait of Bach, his family
and his world and times springs up from the pages, even though I'm only
on chapter 2, "Schooling".